


after philadelphia

by icedteainthebag



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-05
Updated: 2009-03-05
Packaged: 2017-10-21 19:11:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icedteainthebag/pseuds/icedteainthebag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it still hurts me too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	after philadelphia

**Author's Note:**

> Today's prompt was from scullyseviltwin. She wanted post-Never Again spanking where Mulder covers the tattoo, with some lyrics she gave me, and I'm quite happy to report that yes, this fic contains all of it.
> 
> post-never again

_She knows how to get you feeling insane_  
Might forget your own damn name  
When you're around her, that's okay...

x x x x

It's their first time since she cheated on him.

Every time he thinks it, he wants to kick himself in the ass. _Cheated, she cheated, she cheated_ , but she didn't. _She didn't_. She wasn't his to begin with. He tries to convince himself that he hadn't claimed her yet as his own, that they hadn't decided that she was his and he was hers, that there's no way that "her actions" in Philadelphia--he refers to them in his mind as "her actions," so generic, less unsettling--could be construed as cheating.

They'd been fucking, a time here, a time there, on an as-needed basis. She'd come to him or he'd come to her or they'd both look at each other in the middle of some quagmire of shit he'd gotten them into and make a mutual decision--as needed. But that's all it was, all it had been, at least he thought so, until "her actions" in Philadelphia.

He isn't prone to jealous rages. He's more of a brooder, he's the first to admit, letting his anger slowly simmer into significance. But after Philadelphia, after he got the call and rushed over there to see her abrasions and bruises and read the police report, after he saw the guilt in her eyes, after he looked past her vacant, nonchalant stare as she tried to keep him out of her head, after all that, he'd gone home to the dark, lonely space he rarely called home and punched his off-white bedroom wall. Knuckles break panel, but it hurts like a bitch. _I have to fix it before she comes over again_ , he thought then, and so he'd punched the spot again at the thought of _having her over again_.

It's their first time since she cheated on him. It's been three weeks and four days since "her actions" in Philadelphia. She comes over and the spot on the wall is plastered over, a bright white supernova she glances at in passing as she tosses her shirt to his floor.

He sees it then, the eternal return emblazoned on her skin, her souvenir keepsake.

She lies on her back and he stands with his knees against the baseboard. His eyes travel over the shadows that flicker across her body, streetlight breaking the darkness. He undresses. She watches. He can barely see her face.

He slides onto the sheets beside her and she doesn't move, not when he runs hesitant fingers up the cool skin of her side, not when they caress her cheek. He tries not feel offended at her indifference, tries not to think about how she might have responded the last time somebody touched her like that, when she cheated, but she didn't cheat. _She didn't_.

He kisses her and she takes a deep breath through her nose, parting her lips to his tongue, and he feels a surge of something, the hope of approval, a glimmer of acceptance. She kisses him harder, her mouth open, turning on her side and hitching a leg across his hips, her arms dragging him deeper into her embrace.

His mind races as their bodies press together. He can't stop the thoughts, he's trying, but they won't stop. Every scenario he's imagined her in flickers past--Scully back in Philadelphia, in a bed in the dark, naked and sweaty and tangled in sheets, and he wonders if she even turned the lights on, and he wonders if she thought of him while she got fucked, if she thought of him when she shuddered and came against the mouth of her one-night stand.

She moans softly when he bites her neck, an he wants to hear more, he wants her louder, like he imagined her to be with _him_ , so he bites a little harder and finds her wet heat with his hand and shoves two fingers deeply into her, and then, when she tilts her head back and cries out sharply, he feels satisfied for the first time in weeks. He wants more.

A few slick thrusts of his fingers and he pulls away and gently pushes her onto her stomach. She's panting now and she looks at him as she rises on hands and knees. Their eyes catch in a stare, and he can't read her-- _he can always read her, why can't he read her now_ \--and her lips are swollen from his kiss. He gets on his knees behind her. She pushes back against him, his cock hot on the skin of her ass, and she looks over her shoulder as he runs his hands down her back and grips her hips.

He slides into her hard, all the way, and she groans through gritted teeth, her shoulders tensing, fingers clutching at the sheets. He wants to fuck the thoughts of _him_ out of her head. He thrusts harder, faster, holding her there, not letting her move, not letting her keep his rhythm. She starts whimpering with each thrust, but it's a whimper he recognizes from before, and she likes it, she likes him fucking her hard. _This is the way she likes it._ Her muscles tense around his cock, and he watches her shoves her hand between her legs. She shudders as she starts to get herself off while he fucks her.

He rubs the side of her hip with his hand, feels her hipbone under his fingers. _He grabbed her like this_ , he thinks, and it's driving him insane now. _She drives me insane_. She moans at the same time he hears his hand hitting flesh--he looks down at his fingers fanning over her ass. He draws back and hits the spot again, harder, and she cries out this time, sending an electric jolt through his body. And again, and she sounds the same, and she arches her back in a beautiful curve and he leans down to lick between her shoulder blades.

He rises and sees the snake again, as if it's taunting him, reminding him. He covers it with his palm, pressing down on it, pushing harder as he fucks her, like his fucking and his pressing will erase all of it--this mark, her guilt, his anger, "her actions" in Philadelphia. _I can fix this_ , he thinks, and he feels himself starting to come. _I can fix this_.

She cries out his name and slams her head back, her hips grinding against him as she comes hard around him. He goes down with her, his head spinning, his hand grinding into her lower back until she yelps. _It's still tender_ , he thinks. _It still hurts her_.

"It still hurts me too," he whispers.  
___________________________________________________________  
lyrics from _tennessee_ by tim blane  



End file.
